Ohio is treating me very well. I get to see doctors, here, I'm watching what I eat, have lost 11 lbs. in the last two months, and I have a part-time gig cashiering for a small regional chain retailer. Life's pretty good!

And, Mr. Robot  season three starts this week, too!

How have you been?
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Surely, I can affordably rig up some solar input to safely charge a marine deep-cycle 12V battery or two...?  Y'all have ideers? Maybe I'll ask at Habitat for Humanity.

The present setup will yield about 24 hours of APAP*-only juice, so that'd be three normal days. But having the phone charger connected to the inverter one night made me 2.5 hrs. short of Night #3, so I just bring it back to town every other day, basically.

However, inverting the 12VDC to 120VAC uses up more than half the ampere-hours that the battery has to offer. If I had a box that would step down 24VDC (two batteries in series) to 5VDC, and also have a direct 24VDC tap to power the APAP (that's what it takes), then I'd get about five days, I estimate.

With a solar charger of sufficient size, I'm guessing I could keep the APA and phone going indefinitely, with no need for the grid for that stuff.

However, I'm doing very well on the new machine. Here's some of the patient-friendly data:


BigBuck suggested some parts at Amazon for me to rig such a setup together.


*APAP = Automatic Positive Air Pressure; a Continuous PAP device that auto-sets its pressure within a prescribed range. It's a tiny fan with a sealed blower connected to a CPU.
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Yes, I'm getting set up with services. I'm not proud, but I'm happy to be here in the thick of niceness, and the good people of Washington are going to help me eat and get back and forth. Six bucks a day won't let me eat crazy-good, but I can work with that!

Next up, cooking equipment. Heat sources, moving stuff from point A to B. I can stow a bit in the work freezer, and cart 1-2 chicken breasts as needed for grilling.

The battery routine is great. Every other day, and it takes 120 minutes to charge it to 100%. We still need a set of jumper cables.

So, food and healthcare looks resolved. Thank you, Washington. You're the best.
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First night with the fancy new APAP (Autoset Positive Airway Pressure) device, the ResMed Airsense 10 Autoset. Let's see the consumer side of its reporting function, first:

It also happened to count the three minutes the RT tech used to fit my mask and set up the device.

Usage time, mask seal, AHI/AI, mask on/off... all useful data, but...

You don't get the full benefit until you use the ResScan clinician's app and read the detailed data from the SD card. Here's what that looks like:

This will help me know if my pressure needs adjusted, or when my mask cushion needs replaced.

All in all, I'm very happy with this thing!  I slept very well, and feel good knowing I can keep track of how much benefit it provides with more than just "how I feel" when I wake up.
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... but this time, zero nicotine. It's a habit.
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... and I couldn't be thrilledier!  Just look at what I'm using, tonight:

Also, the new one will work with batteries, but I still have homework to do on that front.

UPDATE: Power issue solved!  Only $140+10 s/h.


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Duck... duck...

 ... goose... gander...

... GOSLINGS!
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I'm 100%!
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Koozies rewl. Koozie weather rawks.

Not that anyone should care, but I completed the doctor-recommended* 40 minutes of heart-accelerating walking, covered 1.4 miles and came back with a blood pressure of 128/74, and a heart rate of 89bpm.

Not that anyone should care also, but now you can keep tabs on what I eat and how much I drink by clicking this link, or the My Fatness Pal logo, top right of this blog screen. Smoking, I will keep to myself.

* The psychopathological cardiothoracic surgeon made that recommendation, so maybe it was to KILL me. He said I should work up to that much constant activity per day, not that it should be fast, but that it be contiguous, without rests.
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... to cross the park, Thursday. I took a completely unauthorized leave-of-absense after my cardiologist visit to catch a city bus to head out to visit Gary and Kitteh Bob. Boy, was everyone in eastern Kentucky healthcare pissed at me, yesterday (my last day in the nursing facility)!

I left the appointment, which was essentially at the hospital, and walked to the park, next door. I started timing this after resting the first time by the pond:

I had to cross the park to catch the right bus to get me to Westwood, so...

Plaza next to Boyd County Public Library

So, endurance training... gotta work up from babylungs. Maybe with Babymetal!

Did you get a nurse drunk this weekend?  No? Well, you have the rest of the week to make it official.

Love your nurses, folx. They're the heroes.
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Sun, cold, bloomy.

Cardiocutter's office. He's a rockstar.

 U.S. 23 East, on the way to the doc's.

Jack the Therapooch.

Flutterbies and beemblebiz!

TimeWarner sucks in all multiverses.

I quilt!
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Scaredy cat. Pretty, though.
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That's so awesome!
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Better!
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Just to describe a typical 60-75 minute physical therapy session so far (four sessions), this is usually how it goes. I arrive, sit, bent at the waist on a table with legs outstretched while a PTA puts a pillow between my back and the wall. PTA then puts a hot-pack wrapped in a towel around the ankle for 5-10 minutes, and after that, starts manually testing the dorsal flexibility (dorsiflexion) of the joint, and generally massaging and stretching the joint in several directions. Today, we didn't start with the hot pack.

Then, we move on to something I can do by myself for 5-10 minutes:

That's simply pulling back on the towel to pull my foot back 10°+, hold for 15 seconds, and release. Repeat that about 15 times.

Then,the towel scrunches. PTA brings a chair, lays a towel on the floor in front of the chair. The goal is to scrunch up as much of the towel as possible on the impossible high-traffic carpet.  :)  So, I do this alone for 10 minutes, ~100+ times curling my toes. Ya feel that  the next day, I'm tellin' ya. I do this at home when I'm on the computer, 20-50 at a time.

I'm getting this out of order. We usually do this now after the "calf pulls." The PTA holds one end of the elastic band, and I flex my foot upwards against the resistance 15-30 times. I've been making the PTA go hard on this, as it feels really good, and seems to loosen me up the best.

Thirty marbles on the floor. Pick 'em up with yer bigger toes first, and drop them in the flower vase. Then, dump 'em on the floor and use your little toes to do the same. Also a bit of a trick, but I could not have done it ten days ago.

I think this is called a "wobble board." This is used for both CW and CCW rotation exercises. I have trouble with CCW right now, but CW is going pretty good!

We do some especially fun weight-bearing exercises on the parallel bars. Practicing a slow walk with 50% leg/50% arms-and-other-leg, stepping over small hurdles, again starting and ending with ~50% weight on the bad leg, using an inclined plane to increase the dorsiflexion while shifting weight (hurts like a MoFo).

My favorite part!  ... although I only have four electrodes, and two are on my thigh, one on the calf, and one on the bottom of my foot. This is always the final part of the day's routine, as it helps alleviate swelling in the foot by causing the muscles in the leg to rhythmically twitch, and pump the excess fluid upwards. This takes 15-20 minutes, and varies in intensity, and is usually accompanied by heat packs on the entire leg.
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At my feet. I remember cats who wanted to be at my feet in warm weather...

Flip.

Flop.

EXTREE painful workout at PT, today.
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I actually rated an audience with the surgeon, today, bless my bone. He said I can try up to 50% of my weight on the right leg now (and it feels...?), and he wants me to start PT 3x weekly for six weeks.
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Even at $1.89/dz., they're good, cheap protein.
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